


A Merrier World

by bluebeholder



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Absent Queenie, Canonical Character Death, Comfort Food, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Families of Choice, Gen, Implied Nagini/Credence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Spoilers, The Suitcase Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 06:58:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16656382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”― J.R.R. TolkienIn the aftermath of it all, Jacob makes dinner. Those who are left behind remember, and plan, and have a chance, even for a moment, to smile.Everything else can come after.





	A Merrier World

**Author's Note:**

> Just saw the movie. Damn...y'all. I don't know where to begin except here. Have something nice. <3
> 
> Pro tip: EAT WHILE READING THIS FIC. I ate while writing and it's probably the only reason I didn't eat us out of house and home after finishing the fic...
> 
> 100% unbeta'd.

Afterwards, they go back to Flamel’s house.

The Aurors take their leave, going back to the Ministry of Magic to report the disaster. Their leader, who Jacob guesses to be a bit of a jerk, is shaken enough to let Theseus stay with Newt. “I’m sorry for your loss,” the man says. Sounds sincere, at least to Jacob’s ears, but the look on Theseus’ face is like he’s been slapped anyway.

For a while they just sit in Flamel’s living room in silence. Tina’s keeping it together, barely, leaning on Newt and staring at the floor. Newt looks like he’s completely missing behind the eyes, cradling the injured Niffler on his lap. That girl, Nagini, looks broken. Yusuf, who turned out to be a pretty decent guy and is kind of the only one who didn’t lose anything tonight, gives her his coat and she sits wrapped in it like a statue. Theseus, staring out the window, has tears running down his face, but doesn’t wipe them off.

Jacob doesn’t really know what he’s feeling. What he should be feeling.

Flamel brings tea, but that ain’t enough. Jacob doesn’t want to think about anything, about Grindelwald, about Queenie, about…so he doesn’t think about it. He does what he does best.

He makes dinner.

There’s not a lot to work with in Flamel’s house. He doesn’t keep food, so Jacob goes down into the suitcase to hunt around. Turns out that Newt keeps a whole stash of canned and jarred food, which is nice. In an attempt to distract him, a little, Jacob comes up to ask him about fresher food.

“There are…fish, in the pond,” Newt says, looking befuddled and numb.

“Can you summon ’em for me?” Jacob asks, gesturing at the suitcase.

Newt looks around at the others. They’re all giving Jacob the same confused look. “Why?”

“I’m making dinner,” Jacob says with a shrug. “Don’t think you all just want…canned food.”

It doesn’t take more convincing. Newt summons the fish. Turns out there’s also a tree in the suitcase which, for some reason, grows citrus fruits of all varieties out of season. Jacob collects a bucketful of oranges and lemons, and gets to work.

It takes his mind off things, to do this. Flamel has a disused kitchen and Yusuf is willing to start the fire in the ancient stove, and to loiter and chat while Jacob cooks. Nagini drifts into the room, too, taking a seat near enough to the stove to get warm. The others stay in the living room, talking in low voices.

Jacob starts with the one piece of baking he’s got time for: shortcake. It’s got to be just biscuits, because Newt doesn’t keep sugar around except in cubes for treats and Jacob’s reserving what he’s got for the shortcake filling. His tiny audience watches with interest—well, watches until Jacob turns to Nagini and hands her a knife.

“Can you slice up those oranges?” he asks.

“…me?”

“Yeah, you,” Jacob says, giving her an encouraging smile. “Just slice up the oranges and mash them in a bowl. Throw in the sugar, would you? By the time the shortcakes are done we can use them for filling. It’ll be great.”

Nagini gives him a small half smile, crossing the tiny kitchen with her dress rustling over the dusty floor. “I’ve never tasted an orange, you know.”

“It’s a pleasure to introduce you to them,” Yusuf says. He joins her at the counter and Jacob sees him slicing up an orange and handing Nagini a piece before turning back to the shortcakes.

Comfort food, that’s what they need. Plain biscuit like this isn’t perfect, but it’ll do. Bread flower, salt, and baking powder, sifted together in a bowl. Well—not sifted, because he hasn’t got a sieve, but he does his best to get out the lumps. Rub in the shortening. That gets his hands messy and for just a second, Jacob forgets where he is. Flamel does keep milk, for tea, so that’s nice as Jacob makes the dough. He divides it all up into separate biscuits, one for each person and a few to be on the safe side, and sets it in to bake in the oven, about half an hour. By the time they’re cool, everything else will be done.

He catches himself whistling, bizarrely cheerful, as he measures up the ingredients for a good hearty pea soup. “Anyone in here got an idea of how to soak these peas fast?” he asks, dumping dried peas into the pot.

“I’m not one for kitchen magic,” Yusuf says.

“Tina!” Jacob calls.

She comes in looking a little fragile. “Yes?”

Jacob looks up at her and tries to keep steady. Her eyes are so much like Queenie’s it hurts. But he can’t think like that now. “You got any idea how to soak peas fast? Some spell or something?”

“Soak peas…?”

“For soup,” Jacob says.

A very small smile appears on Tina’s lips. “I can do that,” she says, turning to the pot on the stove and raising her wand.

“When you’re done with that, maybe you can make everything simmer quick too,” Jacob says, a bit sheepish that he forgot.

Tina swallows hard and rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. Sparks dance from the tip of her wand over the pot. “You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

Into the pot goes beef stock—well, the liquid out of cans of corned beef, there’s only so much Jacob can do—celery salt, and the peas. When Tina’s got it simmering well, Jacob tells her to mash up the peas when they’re tender and add some milk and flour to thicken it up. She keeps her eyes on the stove, but nods at him to let him know she heard, and that’s good enough right now.

There’s no time to make fresh bread, but Newt has an old loaf for some reason, and Jacob makes him come in and freshen it up with a little convenient magic. Theseus comes in too, face dry and collar tearstained, but that British stiff upper lip back in place. So he’s not left out, Jacob sets him to slicing up bread and buttering it for everyone.

He didn’t really expect to be cooking with everyone, but it’s nice to have the kitchen full. Nagini keeps sneaking bites of orange and sucking lemon slices. Yusuf, somehow sensing that stability is needed just now, is lightly teasing her about her expressions, teasing which she airily ignores. Newt, finished with his job, stands at the stove beside Tina. They’re talking very softly about salamanders and honestly, Jacob really should have expected that Tina Goldstein would find it romantic. They’re meant for each other. At the side, Theseus is buttering the bread by hand, still looking extremely vacant. Jacob doesn’t disturb him, even though he’s going slow. It’s keeping his hands busy. And into the middle of it all comes Flamel, with more tea for everyone.

All that’s left is the trout. Jacob rolls up his sleeves and gets to work. He cleans and dries the trout—enough for them all, and they’re all starving after the long night, so it’s a lot of fish—leaving the skin on. He makes gashes in the skin, rolls each little fillet in flour and salt and pepper, and fries in a pan with melted butter. It smells fantastic, if Jacob does say so himself.

There’s got to be a sauce for them, so when the fillets come out of the pan and onto a plate, Jacob finishes browning the butter and adds more salt and pepper, and dried parsley and lemon juice. It even manages to look professional, when he’s done.

Because Flamel lacks a dining table, they eat in the living room together. Things are still pretty fragile, and it looks like Tina will burst into tears at any second, but at least they’re all eating. Nagini eats like a woman starved—and maybe she is, apparently they were keeping her in a cage in the circus—but her appetite is equaled by all the ravenous Aurors and Newt. Even old Flamel deigns to have a small bowl of pea soup and a thin slice of buttered bread, which Jacob considers his victory of the night.

Conversation is stilted and awkward, mostly about the food, until Theseus abruptly says, “She hated fish.”

Silence hits like a wave and Jacob’s heart does something painful.

“She really did,” Newt says, after a brief pause. He reflectively pokes at his trout. “Though I think she’d have liked this.”

Yusuf looks at the two brothers with a tightness around his eyes. “You’ll have to tell me sometime about her,” he says. “I never knew more than a name, really.”

“She hated hugs,” Newt says, just as Theseus says, “She loved hugs.”

They look at each other, visibly shocked.

“I guess she was doing what both of you liked best,” Tina says softly. She glances between Newt and Theseus. “Trying her best to take care of you.”

“Yeah,” Jacob says. “To…”

His voice fails him. He sets down his plate and covers his eyes with one hand. Take care of people, do what they like best. That’s what he’s doing now, taking care of them, feeding them, distracting them, healing them in whatever small way he can.

Says a lot that his only victory tonight is getting someone to eat a bowl of soup.

“He liked to take care of people too,” Nagini says. Her voice cracks. “Told me I didn’t belong in a cage. That I could be free of…everything…”

She sniffles. Jacob looks up to see her biting hard on her lip, tears brimming over and running down her face. He’s about to get up to comfort her, but Theseus beats him there. In nearly a blink, he’s on the small sofa beside her, an arm around her shoulders. Nagini completely crumbles, breaking into hysterical sobs, clinging to Theseus.

It’s like a dam broke. Tina starts to cry, too, getting up to come and sit beside Jacob. They don’t hug, but they hold hands while they weep, and that’s pretty much the same thing as a hug. Newt’s looking around at them all helplessly, but when Theseus—crying again, just a few desolate tears—holds out a hand, he takes it and clings. Yusuf watches them all, and Jacob catches sight of the man wiping discreetly at his eyes.

After a few minutes, Nagini’s racking sobs quiet down. She rubs helplessly at her eyes, makeup hopelessly smeared. She looks at her hands, touches her face, and four men at the same time try to offer her a handkerchief. That draws out a shaky little laugh, and suddenly the atmosphere is a little…clearer.

They finish eating and Jacob brings out shortcakes. The orange filling is sweet and the biscuits are perfect and flaky. “Queenie would love these,” Tina says, after a few bites of hers.

“Yeah,” Jacob says, staring at the one he holds.

“I suppose you’ll just have to make them for her when she comes back,” Newt says. Jacob looks up and finds Newt looking right at him, making rare eye contact.

Yes, Jacob decides, as talk turns to what to do next, he’ll do that. When Queenie comes back—when she’s back together with them all, after Grindelwald is defeated because they’re going to defeat him, Jacob has no doubt of that—he’ll sit down and make her shortcake. With whatever filling she likes best, which he happens to know is strawberry because he’s made it for her before.

They’ll sit down, and they’ll talk. They’ll talk about things they should have said and things they shouldn’t have said. About reading minds, about worry, about the future.

And Jacob will, for absolute certain, get down on one knee with a ring in his hand and propose to Queenie like he should have so long ago.

Soon, there’s dishes to do. There’s a night to be spent on Flamel’s uncomfortable floor. There’s a trip to Hogwarts, to meet Dumbledore. And then, Jacob guesses, there’s a war to be won.

But for right now, there’s food to be eaten. There are stories to be told about Leta and Credence and Queenie. There’s half a bottle of moonshine to drink that Newt found in the suitcase. There are creatures to be fed and played with. There’s a chance to grieve.

A chance, even for a moment, to smile.

Everything else can come after that.

**Author's Note:**

> Only one piece of extremely extensive research here: food! Everything comes from “Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Menus, Service” by Ida C. Baily Allen (1924). I checked every recipe according to her book and only made adjustments where necessary for Jacob's limited pantry.
> 
> My apologies if Theseus doesn't quite feel like Movie!Theseus. I wrote 9 fics featuring him in a major role before this movie came out and at the time created a character that worked for the stories I was telling. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to write Movie!Theseus quite right, but I'm all right with that. I love him as he is.


End file.
